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Ethos

Ethos is about the character of the speaker, and is largely about credibility. This credibility comes from a variety of sources, some of which are more relevant to the argument than others. For example, people find those similar to them more persuasive. People also find those high in moral character more persuasive.

Logos

Many MBAs excel in logos. But this can be a crutch. The premise of the Leverage Toolbox is that there is a far wider range of influence tactics available than most people use. Moreover, people tend to be facile, or at least comfortable, with a small number of “go to” moves. For many that is logos. On the other hand, for those weak in this area, tangible remedies are readily available.

Pathos

Pathos is about delivering messages with more impact. How this is done will vary with the audience (that is one of the key points). But don’t believe because you work in a buttoned‐down environment that this doesn’t apply to you. Bankers, doctors, and academics, all are influenced by stories, concrete examples, and emotion.

Allocentrism

Technically allocentrism does not require granting others their interest, but merely seeking to understand them. But these two behaviors are typically very closely related empirically.

Might

While a greater use of coercive power is not necessarily better, a comfort with it is. Might does not require being a jerk. One of the reasons many aren’t comfortable with coercive power is that there are so few examples of people exercising it with grace. It is definitely possible.

Exchange

Extensive bargaining of this kind is most common in explicitly political environments, such as legislatures. Seemingly, the more bureaucratic and rules‐driven an organization, the more exchange is a key influence tactic. But moving beyond a mere quid‐pro‐quo, this tactic is also related to reciprocity – and to generosity.

Networks

Networking need not have a bad name, as it is fundamental to most everyone’s work. Network theory provides a number of ideas of how to cultivate more effective networks, such as the importance of disparate contacts. And there are many practical suggestions for increasing the palatability of networking, such as transparency sincerity, and perhaps most importantly, developing relationships before you need them.

Coalitions

Coalitions relate to working “across the aisle”, building alliances with those outside your immediate and most natural work group. They require the ability to build support on a relationship‐by‐relationship basis. Empirically, coalition-building is the only tactic that loads substantively, and more or less equally, on “hard power” and “soft power”. In short, multiple strategies call for it – and it has one of the strongest positive relations to overall influence.

Team-building

Team-building is about unifying a group, and keeping it unified. We sometimes think of this as “beyond coalitions”, in the sense that it is intended to transcend the separate identities still present in a coalition.

Intentionality

Those with greatest influence tend to be highly focused people. Indeed, it is difficult to attain influence without considerable focus on a relatively narrow set of goals. Moreover, those accustomed to wielding power have learned to trade “lesser evils” in service of higher goals. This kind of intentionality also interacts in important ways with other tactics, providing a counter‐balance to too much allocentrism and too many relational constraints.

Situational Awareness

Of particular interest is how the importance and uncertainty (or familiarity) of different factors in your environment vary over time. A particularly potent form of overconfidence is believing that what has worked for you in the past will continue to do so when in fact circumstances have changed.

Agency

Agency is about proactively shaping situations and accepting little as fixed. We typically find that this tactic is most strongly related to overall influence, empirically.